Color Woes... Help Needed

[Kristy]

Hi there,
I did a newborn shoot in the home of a family that had very BLUE walls.... Ahhh... I had no idea that would cause a problem with the skin tones on my end photos.

I shot Raw, and adjusted as best I could... (no gray card, I haven't learned the art of manual white balance yet.... darn).

Any suggestions on how I can reduce the very red skin tones to a more normal level? I keep trying to do selective coloring and reduce magenta, add yellow, etc... but it just isn't working.

Thanks for any suggestions. I'm willing to try anything, otherwise this is going to be a strictly B&W presentation and I'm sure the mother would like to see some in color... since babies have such beautiful skin.

I'm using PS & and RSE (free version).

Kristy

[Poe]

You should be able to adjust the white balance manually in RSE before sending the photo for editing in photoshop.

[Kristy]

Yeah, I know, but I can't get it right.... I'm wondering if someone can direct me on settings or an easy way to fix it. Usually I can get it pretty close, but for some stupid reason I can seem to achieve the right mix on this set.

[Poe]

I'm looking through PS CS2 right now. I'd suggest experimenting with the color specific parts of levels, color balance, hue/saturation and channel mixer. You might get a combination that works. Did you try auto levels, or auto color?

[J Rabin]

Kristy: Babies may have beautiful skin, but not to a camera. Pale and thin skin with surface blood vessels and no tan reflects flash near IR light, which digital sensors are a bit sensitive to. Flash exascerbates the effect, but it is exists in lots of blond, fair skin folk.
There is a fabulous FAST (< 1 minute) EFFECTIVE HANDSOME red skin technique in the book "How to Wow PhotoShop for Photography, 2nd ed," Davis and Willmore. Authors call the technique "Unifying Skin Color & Tone."
This one technique has saved or improved so many saleable photos for me, it has more than paid the price of the book.

There are always six different right ways to achieve a similar PhotoShop result, but this one is very simple, slick, speedy, effective.

Hang-on, let me go Google this...be back...OK, here is someone else's explanation: http://www.smugmug.com/help/red-skin-tones

Davis Willmore technique above works as good as any.
Jack

[jbkalla]

If the above doesn't work, you could post it and I could try ROC on it. It probably won't help, but who knows: Maybe someone else will come up with something! :-)

[Kristy]

Thanks guys! :) I'll give the tutorial a try, and see how it works... I may take John up on the offer to try ROC on it... what is ROC? anyway? Later tonight I should have a few minutes to try it out.... today is cleaning and spending time with my little ones... :) Thanks for the help. :)

[mbze430]

ROC is by ASF which got bought by Kodak. It is a software plugin for Photoshop and Scanners. It does Color resoration, Balance, and correction. It works okay, depends.

There isn't so much as a "right" settings, because color cast enduce different degree shifts.

Link a RAW file, and I am sure someone will be able to correct it.

[Kristy]

okay, Here are a couple before and afters.... Sorry for the photos... I just grabbed the quickest one here...

First one is color straight from the camera... may have been desaturated a bit, but I forget. Second one is adusted with the following: Levels, blue .90 (center slider)******
Saturation -25 Red Chanel, ****** Selective Color: Red Channel Cyan -42 Black -17 Yellow +6 Magenta -7

It still doesn't look quite right, but it's better.... I have a handful of photos that look this way... I have so much to learn on the processing end... what would you do?

ps.. Thanks Jack... this is from the smugmug tutorial, with a couple of my own adjustments.

[Kristy]

Oh and I think they must be a bit Irish or something because their skin tones really are a bit on the reddish side... This is natural light in a room with very Blue walls.... No flash used...

[jbkalla]

OK. ROC was useless in this case (happens often, but doesn't hurt to try!), but I adjusted color a little. Not sure if it's closer or not... They look a little orange to me! I think your first pic was probably better than this, but I got rid of the blemishes in the man's face and neck.

[Kristy]

Yeah, they are looking a bit orange, aren't they? I keep trying to remember if that's right or not. I know the dad was a bit reddish.. but not this much. Do you think the blue walls reflected on them and caused the skin tones to turn out this way? Looks like B&W photos are in order... darn!

[mbze430]

Here is a 5min jobber... I wish I had the RAW... probably make a better difference...

[condyk]

Damn that's a good bit of PP Master Johnny ... I wish I could do that, but without having the effort, time pain of learning ;-)

[mbze430]

heheh, you don't wanna know how much I charge my clients than....LMAO..

[Kristy]

Care to share your secret? It looks a little "Neat Imaged"... did you run it through at the end?

I'd post the Raw file, but I don't know how to do that.. the file is much tooo large....
Thanks for taking the time..

[Bookmarks]

I don't know if there is a correct skin color for every image. I usually experiment with different settings until I find something that looks right to me. On your image I used color washer ( a commercial plug-in ) and then USM 300/.3/0, faded to luminosity and decreased the green to 95% in channel mixer to come up with this image. [recent edit] increased color saturation 14% as my last picture looked too desaturated.

69776

[mbze430]

I sharpened the image, than masked all the skins and soften it up a little. So the baby looks to still have "baby smooth" skin.

I only run Neat Image only when I know I have shot images over a certain ISO.

As for color corrections. There isn't a "perfect" or the absolute correct way. Everyone's sight and perception is different. I merely corrected it to the national avg "eye".

What you want to do is study color theory, and get yourself a color wheel. What you read and use is the correct method. When you subtract a specific color, you want to add the opposite color, this way it doesn't introduce a new shift or tint. That is why the other's person effort shifted orange.

I can't see the above image from hjoe_acf, so I have no idea...

[Kristy]

Thank you... I need to learn about masking... all in due time I suppose...

Where do you think I can find a color wheel.... Is there a good book on color theory that you recommend... I'm learning in bits and pieces, but this is a large challenge that I would like to get down to a science.. :)

[UncleDoug]

Kristy,

I personally think your first try is darn good.
When adjusting, start out objective but then look at the image subjectively.
Ask yourself things like, does this look real?, what color is the gentlemans hair?, have any of my previous adjustments affected these?

I've attached my quick stab at this.
Not too far from yours.
Slight color ballance, selective color on the whites, blemish removal and very slight USM.
I've found that USM needs to be used very judiciously. Too much and facial texture can be brought out all too easily

There are may sources for info about color theory. I'd say go to Barnes and Noble and poke around. Find a book that makes sens to how you learn things.

[mbze430]

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/colour_theory.shtml

Here is the basic color theory. I took 2 semister of this during college. One for photography and one for Art & History (required for photography).

There are TONs of books on color theory, there are also tons of color wheels.

[Kristy]

Kristy,

I personally think your first try is darn good.
When adjusting, start out objective but then look at the image subjectively.
Ask yourself things like, does this look real?, what color is the gentlemans hair?, have any of my previous adjustments affected these?

I've attached my quick stab at this.
Not too far from yours.
Slight color ballance, selective color on the whites, blemish removal and very slight USM.
I've found that USM needs to be used very judiciously. Too much and facial texture can be brought out all too easily

There are may sources for info about color theory. I'd say go to Barnes and Noble and poke around. Find a book that makes sens to how you learn things.

Thanks for the compliments Doug... Color correction is on of my biggest challenges now... Looking at a photo for too long always kills me. When I walk away and come back in the morning I always feel differently about it.

Definitely will look into a book and some kind of color wheel. :)
Happy Day!

[Kristy]

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/colour_theory.shtml

Here is the basic color theory. I took 2 semister of this during college. One for photography and one for Art & History (required for photography).

There are TONs of books on color theory, there are also tons of color wheels.

Awesome! thanks for the link... I will be perusing it tomorrow if all goes well. :)

I'll have to book mark you as my color specialist advisor.. ... lol... Thanks for the tips. I appreciate your time and everyone else who responded to my plea! :)

[mbze430]

not a problem, if you use IM, I can be contacted through that too. I have no problem lending a helping hand in photography, for anyone.

[UncleDoug]

Thanks for the compliments Doug... Color correction is on of my biggest challenges now... Looking at a photo for too long always kills me. When I walk away and come back in the morning I always feel differently about it.

Definitely will look into a book and some kind of color wheel. :)
Happy Day!

Yeah, looking at an image too much will end up getting you into trouble.

I like to equate good image correction with flying a plane.
You have to operate in two environments, VFR visual flight rules(subjective analysis through your eyes) and IFR instrument flight rules(objective analysis by-the-numbers). Learning to combine them will lead to great results.

The main reason I complimented you on your "first try" is because it seems more natural to me. Moreso than any of the others. Babys of caucasian ancestry are not sheet white they are pink-redish bundles of joy! Neither are they blue, unless left out in the cold. But they do have that blue-vein issue as eluded to earlier. I say go natural first and then take your creative vision from there.